The Marxist-Leninist Daily

Workers' Movement
Rio Tinto Workers in Alma, Quebec Earn Respect from Far and Wide

Important Visit of Kitimat Workers to Alma

Representatives of the workers at Rio Tinto Alcan's smelter and Kemano power station in Kitimat, BC visit
the Alma workers. Also pictured is the president of the Alma workers' union Marc Maltais (far left) and a
representative of the workers at the Niobec mine in Saint-Honoré, QC (second from left). (Mark McIlwrath)

Workers' Movement
Rio Tinto Workers in Alma, Quebec Earn Respect from Far and Wide

Important Visit of Kitimat Workers to Alma

From January 19-20, a delegation of Rio Tinto workers from Kitimat, British Columbia members of Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Local 2301, was in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean to express support for the locked out Alma workers and hold discussions on how to develop the fight against Rio Tinto's attacks. The delegation was made up of Local 2301 President Ed Abreu and two other union executive members.

The Kitimat workers stood with the Alma workers on their picket lines and held discussion with the Rio Tinto unions in Alma and Arvida and regional officers of the CAW. They firmly opposed Rio Tinto's decision to lock out its workers on the very day the contract expired and denounced the brutal expulsion of workers from the plant by 150 security guards hired by the company, 24 hours before the legal period for lockouts and strikes had even begun. They made the point that whether workers are organized as Steelworkers (which is the case in Alma) or the CAW, they all have the same interests and their fight is one.

The discussion, the workers reported, centred on the fight against unrestricted use of subcontracting, and to maintain definite levels of unionized employment at the Rio Tinto smelters.

Kitimat is a small coastal town in Northern BC of about 9,000 people in which Rio Tinto Alcan is the biggest employer. As in Alma and Arvida, Rio Tinto in Kitimat enjoys huge hydroelectric privileges from its Kemano Power Station, using the hydro power of the area's rivers. As is the case in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the workers in Kitimat report an increase of attacks against the workers since Rio Tinto took control of Alcan in 2007.

The Kitimat workers are themselves entering into negotiations with Rio Tinto soon to renew the labour contract expiring at the end of July 2012. The negotiations are being held in a context where Rio Tinto has announced a $3.3 billion investment to modernize its Kitimat smelter. The modernization is expected to increase production from 282,000 tons of aluminum a year to 420,000 tons. The Kitimat workers expect Rio Tinto is going to use the occasion to reduce the numbers of the workers belonging to the local union at the smelter from today's roughly 1,100 to about 850, and that the new positions are to be filled by subcontracting. The Kitimat workers report one approach Rio Tinto has taken is that if a service is contracted out at more than 50 per cent of its smelters, it will push to contract out the same service at all its smelters. This is why they say the fight to preserve bargaining unit work for the Alma workers is so important: their struggle transcends the Alma situation and impacts smelter workers across the country.

Kitimat workers report they were very satisfied with their visit. Besides talking to the workers, the delegation was interviewed by various local media. It was not the first time the Kitimat workers were in the region or in communication with the workers there. They were there last spring and have kept in touch via teleconferences and social media.

Back in Kitimat, they reported on their visit to the workers in their bulletin in an article entitled "Truth, Lies and Solidarity," which says in part:

"A meeting was held with Steelworkers officers, including Marc Maltais, President of the Alma Local. It was important for CAW 2301 to clearly understand what the real issues behind the dispute were and what it would take to resolve it. Contracting out is the only outstanding issue at the Alma smelter. The CAW and Steelworkers unions representing workers in RTA plants have forged a very strong relationship in recent months and will continue to do so as we now communicate via social media and have been set up for teleconferencing at the hall. These improved relations will further enable RTA's unionized workers, regardless of union affiliation, to develop a unified, aligned approach to meeting challenges from our common employer."

Marc Maltais, the President of the Syndicat des travailleurs de l'aluminium d'Alma also expressed his satisfaction with the visit of the Kitimat workers. "Their presence is an important moral support for us," he said. "Rio Tinto is experimenting on us and this is going to affect the Kitimat workers too. To share information on a strategic level is fundamental."

Arvida Workers Give Million Dollar
Interest-Free Loan to Struggle in Alma

Membership meeting of Rio Tinto Arvida workers, January 18, 2012.

In two general membership meetings, more than 1,300 of 1,650 Rio Tinto workers in Arvida voted for a $1 million interest-free loan to support the locked out workers in Alma. These workers are members of the Syndicat national des employés de l'aluminium d'Arvida of the Canadian Auto Workers. The vote was almost unanimous and was received with tumultuous applause by the workers present. Local media reported on comments made by the Arvida workers at the end of the meeting declaring their pride in contributing to the workers' common struggle against Rio Tinto. "We are all trade unionists," said one of them. "We all have to help each other." The Alma and Arvida aluminum smelters are the two main facilities of Rio Tinto Alcan in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region.

Arvida Local President Alain Gagnon blamed not only Rio Tinto for the lockout but also the Quebec government. He pointed out that the government did not demand limits to subcontracting nor the maintaining of employment levels when the hydro rights of the previous owner Alcan were renewed in 2006. The government, he stated, has abdicated its responsibilities, therefore opening the door to labour disputes such as the one currently on in Alma. "Once again, the burden is on the unions to move society forward."

He opposed the establishment of two-tier wages and working conditions for the same work: "It is totally unacceptable to have people working on the potlines for $13-14 an hour." He also denounced Rio Tinto for refusing to continue talks with the union and locking them out as soon as the labour contract expired. "I am very worried by this new attitude of 'no contract, no work.' In the past we have negotiated contracts up to 14 months after the old one expired."

Increasing Number of Students Take a Stand

On January 18, the executive of the student association at the Cégep de Jonquière unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Alma locked out workers. The communiqué issued by its President, Kim Samson, says in part: "The union is fighting for the future generations. The workers can be sure the student association supports them in their fight to restrict subcontracting and for secure levels of employment. The demands for secure employment levels and to prevent unionized jobs from being done by others will help students finding quality jobs when they graduate. We support without reservation their fight against this multinational corporation." The resolution is being presented at the general membership meeting of the association January 31. A group of students from the Cegep went to support the workers on their picket lines, as did students from the University of Quebec in Chicoutimi.

This is a slap in the face to Rinto Tinto according to whose slanders the struggle of the Alma workers is selfish and an obstacle to students finding jobs in the region when they graduate. "Far from it," said a worker praising the presence of students on the lines. "If these youth have no place here to make a living in dignity, they are going to go to other regions or leave for Montreal as so many do."

Rio Tinto's Relentless Attempts to
Criminalize the Workers

Rio Tinto continues its attempts to divert attention from its own arrogance and social irresponsibility by attempting to criminalize the workers and reduce their just demands to law and order matters. On January 25, the company served notice on the union that the workers are not abiding by the injunction limiting picketing and could be charged with contempt.

Rio Tinto says in its notice that workers vandalized railway tracks that bring materials to the facility and have intimidated subcontractors and managers going in and out of the plant.

The company referred to the interim injunction it got from the court during the night of New Year's Day, extended on January 10 until April 2. The injunction forbids picketing within 500 feet of the facility and limits the number of pickets to 20. It serves to prohibit any action by the picketers, including slowing down those going into the plant as is their right under picketing protocols. The injunction is based on unproven company allegations which accuse the workers of vandalism, intimidation and assault -- defamations which it has been making since before the lockout was imposed. The invalidity of this self-serving propaganda can be seen in the fact that no charges have been laid or even investigated. Where are the laws to make such wanton slander and defamation illegal? They do not exist. Meanwhile, the courts are used to defend corporate interests and criminalize the struggle of the workers.

The most egregious evidence of how the company is permitted to get away with such behaviour is its brutal expulsion of the workers from the plant the day before the contract expired. It has transformed the plant into a militarized bunker protected by security guards. When a corporation acts in this way, the impression is given that they must do this in order to protect their private property and interests. It is allegedly legitimately protecting itself from violent workers. At the same time, when the workers want to peacefully picket or they stand up for their rights, they are treated as criminals.

The union in Alma is very clear about the aim of this self-serving despicable activity and is sticking to demanding a just resolution to the contract dispute. It is abiding by the injunction but is challenging the allegations of vandalism and intimidation as a diversion from the issue at the heart of the dispute: the fight against the degradation of working conditions through subcontracting and for secure levels of unionized employment at the plant.

Autoworkers Fed Up with "Marchionne Code"

When Fiat took control of Chrysler in 2009, it demanded that the union accept the implementation of a work system known as World Class Manufacturing (WCM), euphemistically known as the "Marchionne Code" after Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne. Amongst other things, under WCM workers were organized into cells with union members assigned as cell leaders. This eliminated an entire level of salaried employees who had previously done the work that cell leaders do today. It also blurred the lines between the union and management.

Under WCM workers' jobs have been restructured in a way that is dangerous to their long-term health and safety. For instance, workers used to get parts from their stock table and walk to the vehicle they were working on. Now parts for a number of jobs travel with the vehicle on the line allowing one worker to do multiple jobs. The workers explain that they have done much to introduce innovations and increase productivity, however, these measures mean that the frequency and severity of repetitive strain injuries will increase over time because there is no break between activities.

According to the company, the goal of WCM is to "empower the workers" so they can participate in reducing injuries, increasing quality and efficiency. However, the company's latest move in the name of WCM has workers saying enough is enough. Workers inform that they are now being disciplined for having personal reading material at their work station and for bringing in stools so they can rest between jobs or when the assembly line stops. The pretext the company is giving is that by eliminating such things, the quality of the vehicles being assembled will increase.

Workers have drawn the conclusion that these new measures have nothing to do with increasing quality. Instead, they are an attack on their dignity and an attempt to treat them like slaves under the control of management. The workers point out that they already produce a high quality product and that if the company wants to improve it, workers require a calm atmosphere in which they can do their job properly, without scrambling or sufficient rest.

Workers are asking why the company is trying to control what they do when the line stops given the workers have no control over the matter. Workers are speculating that these measures may be provocations in the lead-up to negotiations and part of an attempt to claim that workers should not be paid when the line is stopped, if shifts are cancelled or they are sent home early due to parts shortages or other pretexts, which happens often. Workers also feel that this may be a prelude to adding more work to each job.

Resolute Forest Product's Threats and Blackmail

Demonstration against closure of paper machine number 6, at Resolute Forest Products
Kenogami mill, November 26, 2011. (FTQ)

Quebec's Minister of Natural Resources and Wildlife on December 31, 2011 announced that the government would not renew the lease on the Shipshaw River's hydraulic power held by Resolute Forest Products (RFP -- formerly known as AbitibiBowater) which expired December 31. The river feeds the monopoly's Jim Gray hydroelectric facility in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the most powerful of its seven facilities that provide hydro power to its mills in Alma and Kenogami.

The announcement followed RFP's closure of paper machine No. 6 at the Kenogami mill and refusal to commit to any definite investments in its facilities in the region for the next 10 years. According to the Minister's communique, the Quebec government plans to take possession of the Jim Gray facility at the end of February after a transition period.

In January, RFP's CEO Richard Garneau made a series of increasingly arrogant comments. He told local media that the monopoly is considering all its options including suing the Quebec government (an action in keeping with Garneau's disposition towards spurious litigation) or departing the region and leaving the communities stranded as RFP basically controls the region's forestry industry.

Particularly shocking was Garneau's call to the Mayors of the region to put pressure on the Quebec government to give the monopoly what it wants or the municipalities will pay the price. In an interview in early January, he said:

"We are not there yet [i.e., suing the government]. But the Mayors better start asking questions too, because they are going to be affected. The dialogue must carry on because the issue is very serious for the communities; the whole region is going to be affected. It is important people grasp what the issues are and what the consequences of the moves being made are."

One could consider Garneau's statements as uttering public threats. It is no different than a mafia "protection" racket. According to Garneau, no rational thought is to be allowed on how to solve the crisis of the forestry industry nor how to provide it with a sustainable future.

Meanwhile, Garneau also demands a secure wood supply. He wants a guarantee that the monopoly will have access to as much of the resource as it wants, whatever it decides to do. He says that a guaranteed wood supply is collateral for the monopoly to secure loans from financial institutions. In this way, Garneau wants to create a situation in which the monopoly has all the resources it wants but has no obligations to provide jobs and produce goods in the region. This is unacceptable arrangement and must be firmly opposed.

While these threats are uttered, RFP is quietly changing the way its plants operate. In Kenogami, it is not only the production workers affected by the closure of paper machine No. 6 who are being laid off but also a number of other workers whose jobs are being subcontracted. For a while now, RFP has been musing about reopening the paper mill in Dolbeau-Mistassini, closed since 2009. Its plans to do so would be with what it terms a small number of "core" production workers, with the rest of the positions subcontracted out.

RFP is also pursuing a hostile takeover of pulp producer Fibrek which has a plant in Saint-Felicien and two in the United States. This would give RFP even more control over the forestry industry in the region. The union representing the workers at the Fibrek plant is very reluctant to see RFP take over Fibrek. The union president recalled that following the 2000 and 2002 period when the mill was owned by Abitibi Consolidated (which merged with Bowater in 2007) the workers were relieved when the facility was sold to SFK Pulp, which later became Fibrek. However, AbitibiBowater retained the contract to supply wood chips to the pulp mill and caused major problems to the extent of breaking that contract in 2009.

The union president explained: "They blackmailed us when they were under bankruptcy protection, breaking our supply contract, which made us vulnerable. The contract had to be renegotiated and the new one was not as good." In 2009, SFK sued AbitibiBowater for this breach of contract, but the Quebec Superior Court ruled in favour of the latter under the hoax the contract hindered the monopoly's restructuring under bankruptcy protection.

The extreme arrogance of RFP's CEO is an expression of monopoly dictate that is not acceptable to the forestry workers and communities of Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean. Workers demand acceptable arrangements of mutual benefit that recognize their rights as workers, the right of the region to flourish and prosper, and the obligations of the monopolies using natural resources that belong to the people.

Supreme Court Dismisses Catalyst Paper's
"Municipal Tax Revolt"

On January 29, the Supreme Court of Canada again rejected Catalyst Paper's refusal to pay its property taxes for its facility in North Cowichan on Vancouver Island. The Court upheld a prior ruling which rejected the pulp and paper monopoly's claims that it pays too much in municipal taxes for what it receives in services.

The affair dates back several years to when Richard Garneau, present CEO of Resolute Forest Products (formerly AbitibiBowater) was CEO of Catalyst from 2007 to 2010. In charge of Catalyst, Garneau closed mills, blackmailed workers to extort concessions from them, and led a "revolt against municipal taxes" in the municipalities where Catalyst was operating. Under his rule, in 2009 Catalyst refused to pay its taxes in four British Columbia municipalities where the company was operating pulp and paper mills. Other forestry monopolies followed suit and also stopped paying their municipal taxes.

The four municipalities filed suit against Catalyst in the BC Supreme Court, which ruled in December 2009 that municipalities have the right to determine their tax rates. Catalyst appealed to the provincial Court of Appeal, which upheld the decision of the Supreme Court. Catalyst then appealed this decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.[1]

In a unanimous decision the seven judges of the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Catalyst's arguments and declared that the rates of municipal taxation were not unreasonable and that municipalities have the right to apply different tax rates to different types of property. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin determined that the Court doesn't have the power to set aside municipal bylaws "simply because a bylaw imposes a greater share of the tax burden on some ratepayers than on others." She wrote that, in reviewing bylaws for reasonableness, courts "must consider the wide variety of factors municipal councillors may face" and could set aside a bylaw, only if it "is one no reasonable body informed by these factors could have [implemented]."

A Catalyst spokesperson said that the company is disappointed with the judgement but she added that it will continue its discussions with the municipality, in which it would most certainly cite the mention in the Supreme Court decision that the municipal taxes are rather high.

Note

1. Garneau left Catalyst Paper and returned to his home in Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean as CEO of AbitibiBowater in 2010. Following a similar pattern to his tenure at Catalyst, a few months later, AbitibiBowater filed a suit against the tiny municipality of Saint-David-de-Falardeau claiming the municipal taxes were too high. Garneau is now considering suing the government of Quebec for not having renewed the lease on the Jim Gray hydroelectric plant that is also in Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean.

Important Visit of Kitimat Workers to Alma

Important Visit of Kitimat Workers to Alma

Arvida Workers Give Million Dollar Interest-Free Loan to Struggle in Alma

Increasing Number of Students Take a Stand

Rio Tinto's Relentless Attempts to Criminalize the Workers

Autoworkers Fed Up with "Marchionne Code"

Resolute Forest Product's Threats and Blackmail

Supreme Court Dismisses Catalyst Paper's "Municipal Tax Revolt"

Note

Arvida Workers Give Million Dollar
Interest-Free Loan to Struggle in Alma

Rio Tinto's Relentless Attempts to
Criminalize the Workers

Supreme Court Dismisses Catalyst Paper's
"Municipal Tax Revolt"